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Why would the guy from highschool buy a device if he cannot afford the l33t software his best friend got for free for his jailbreaked iPhone?

I really think this is a funny thread.

The way it works is if lots of people start writing lots of commercial software for N900 then someone will crack the software. But I don't think Nokia is hopeing for lots of piracy of software. Most companies try to prevent it... not make is worst. Haha... I mean if Nokia says we welcome piracy... who would want to write software for the platform.

But like I said... if there is lots of software... there will be some piracy. But Nokia will never support piracy. Haha....

It's an interesting theory. Yeah, I'm sure that there are people out there like that, but there's a big difference here compared to the console. On neither the 360 nor PS3 are games given away for free... so I guess there's more of a desire to get around restrictions so you can run pirated games.

Since most apps on Maemo to this point are free... I don't think it really fits your analogy... but of course, we're probably going to see more pay apps as Maemo goes on. Hell, we even saw the Wayfinder app on previous tablets hacked by people here so...

Again, I could see your point when the consoles are $300+ and each piece of software is $60+... but not in this case where the phone is over $600, most phone apps are less than $10 and most of the apps on Maemo are free.

Like I said, though... interesting theory.

Here is the point for most piracy. Yes apps that cost .99 seems like small fries to buy. But he is talking more of the collector pirate who is not downloading apps they need... but just becuase they can. They might download 5,000 ipod apps.. but never even mess with more than 10 of them.. because they have to catch them all. Haha..

Sure, but there's( pretty much) always a free alternative.

Though it's true that for those applications for which there isn't one( or it's clearly inferior) there's going to be interest in having them "pirated", and in that case it's going to be a simple task, because there's no drm or the like.

[There shouldn't be any conversion on this topic, pirated software is illegal.

[This is only a matter of time. Remember ours are free, so apps take longer to develop, that doesn't mean that there won't be as many, you'll just have to wait a bit longer

[That's the whole point, take a look in Extras, all free. People don't need pirated software here. Don't think you quite get the concept?

[So non-western countries can't afford apps, but they can afford $500-600 on the device??? Plus gps software and maps are native, plus others that will come along. Which software did you mean by the way?

[This will be me

[True, but I brought it for live, not everyone wants to be a criminal.

[There is always interest and always will be, but you can't base your decision on whether you can get your hands on cracked software???

If your interested buy the device, learn about it, wait for other lovely people to design new apps and upload them to here for free, or design them yourself.

people who say this basically do not have any ideas whats going on. it doesnt matter of wii, 360 or ps3 - downloading and playing games on these consoles is no problem whatsoever. on wii, you dont even need to hardware-modify your console. its a matter of 5 minutes to enable your wii to play burned games.

anyway, most apps for the n900 will be free anyway - so whats the problem?
for the most commercial programs that will be available for the n900 there will be free alternatives.

They say don't feel the trolls......

Clearly open source software is not being represented properly (to the general public).

The classic analogy is that free software is like a beverage, you can give it to someone for free, but you didn't give them the recipe (i.e. they don't know what is in it). Open source software is often said to be free as in the freedom of speech, however that is confusing to some, we'll say it's like being given the recipe to that beverage. This gives you the ability to make it, modify it and distribute it.

As far as the a lack of pirated things available, hah! They are called ROMs. The emulators available are open source, yet it is Bring Your Own ROMs.

There is also the wayfinder trial, editable-enabled Office software, etc. that can be screwed with.

Now why can't you use your favorite *insert some proprietary software*? Chances are it was written for Windows and almost guaranteed chance of compiled for the x86 architecture. I suppose you could say the Windows (x86) to Linux x86 software difference is like a language barrier, that can be overcome with translation tools such as WINE. However x86 versus ARM is like a species barrier.

There is plenty of proprietary software on the NITs that Nokia cannot/will not open up, so you could try and reverse engineer that if you want a challenge but GOOD LUCK with that!

Really, with Linux, having any proprietary software in the ecosystem is frowned upon by the community - simply put, we don't want to deal with that crap.

If you want to have to constantly battle for control of your device, buy something from Apple, Sony or Microsoft. If you don't want to deal with keygens, serial numbers, anti-viruses, etc. to get the full experience (without shelling out $$$) then go *nix.

And if you feel like you need your pirated software every once in awhile, there is VNC & x11 forwarding (;

Intersting. I thought about this also but then N900 and Maemo in general is a bit different to most other phones / platforms. I see N900 similar to an "already-hacked" phone category. So any app you can find for it, you can install it. Easy. There is a lack of commercial apps for it. I do agree. But it's just the beginning. I hope N900 does well enough to kick start the support and growth of Maemo apps. Both free and commercial ones.

Some of them will even be open source, yes.

Probably not those, but there are others. My favourite games are already open source on my Linux laptop, so I hope they will be ported or similar ones made.